


Greatly Exaggerated

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Better to Face the Bullets 'verse [15]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ish promptathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 18:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15467697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Belle receives a letter in the post with some shocking news that she and Rummond are fairly certain is inaccurate.





	Greatly Exaggerated

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt - _shipperqueen93 prompted: so my grandfather served in WW2, got shell shock, was MIA for 3 weeks before stumbling back into his camp. He was sent home discharged or something. Well flash forwards about 20 years, he's met my grandma, had 5 kids. My grandma gets the mail one day and has received mail from the US Government. They regret to inform her that my grandfather had been declared legally dead after being missing in action for 20+ years. My grandpa is sitting in his recliner as she reads this and asks why she is laughing. She tells him what is going on and my mom pipes up "does that mean that we're all half ghost?" it would be hilarious if something like this happened in the Btftb verse :D_ ]

It was half past two on Wednesday - the mid-week half-day that Belle had begun taking off from her clinic to make things a bit easier on herself - when one of the maids was sent in with the afternoon post. The timing was usual. Only the expression on said maid’s face was out of the ordinary.

“Holly?” she asked as the young housemaid held out a modest stack of envelopes. “Are you quite all right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the girl said with a nod. 

Belle lay her book down on her rapidly shrinking lap and took the letters, placing them on top of it. “You look as though you’ve had a shock.”

“No, ma’am. It’s only-” The maid seemed as though she wanted to shift a look over to Rummond and kept herself from it. “There’s been a letter addressed to you from what may be an unexpected source?”

“Thank you, then,” Belle said, and the maid flitted off, having been dismissed. A tad high strung, that one. 

The children would be home from school in perhaps an hour, and she was intent on spending the time between leaving work and their arrival by sitting with her husband. He sat a bit down from her, more toward the middle of the sofa so that she could lean against the arm of it. Her legs rested across his lap. She’d found herself paying more attention to the way his fingers stroked absently against her ankles than to her book.

When she picked up the letter on top of the stack, she found herself brought up short. No wonder the housemaid had been antsy. The envelope was emblazoned with the colors of the Royal Navy. And addressed to Mrs. Rummond Gold.

Studiously keeping a frown from her face, she flipped the envelope over and took the paper knife from the tray on the table next to her, slicing the top open. She had no idea what to expect. There was no reason at all for the Royal Navy to contact her. They didn’t even have business contacting Rummond, for that matter. Not unless they were bearing one hell of an apology.

She skimmed the letter once and only found herself bewildered. A more careful reading helped very little. Her confusion must have shown on her face, because Rummond patted her leg to gain her attention.

“Belle?” he asked. “Something in the post?”

“Ah… in a manner of speaking.” She glanced up at him, giving him a smile that even she could feel wasn’t completely true.

It had been a number of years since he’d left the hospital, but some wounds went too deep to prod at. She always worried for him. And now this ridiculous letter.

His hand rested across her shins. “What is it?”

She hummed. “For some reason, I’ve gotten a letter from the Royal Navy.”

“Oh?” Rummond’s eyebrows rose.

_“Apparently_ you’ve been declared officially dead.”

“I’ve…” He tilted his head a bit. “What?”

“‘Presumed to have died on 11th of April, 1918,’” she read from the brief notification. “They extend their sympathies and say I can expect a letter shortly containing advice regarding applying for your pension.”

Rummond gaped at her. “They put me through a bloody trial,” he said quietly after a moment. “A trial that I am _certain_ is on record.”

She dropped her hand and the piece of paper down to her lap with a fluttering noise. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine.” He clucked his tongue, clearly put out by the silliness of it.

Belle turned the letter over to make certain it was only the one side. “Well. No one ever did accuse the entire enterprise of being too clever with their paperwork, did they?”

“May I see that?” he asked.

She offered the letter, and when he took it, she rested a hand on his forearm while he gave it a read. The expression on his face shifted from annoyance to incredulity and finally to exasperation. 

“Do you want me to write to them?” she said when it became clear that he only looked at the paper without seeing the words any longer. “There’s a piece of my mind I’ve been itching to offer them for a good seven years now.”

“No. No, love.” He folded the letter along its creases, putting it on top of the envelope still in her possession. “I’ll write something. At this point, I think I may be more diplomatic than you about it.”

When he sent her a sidelong twinkle-eyed look, she knew that he was all right, indeed. Using his arm as leverage, she pulled herself forward to kiss the corner of his mouth. He turned his head for a proper kiss before wrapping his arm around her, gathering her closer against him.

“Shall we tell the children?” Rummond asked at length, a grin tugging at one side of his mouth just where she’d kissed him. “That they’re all half ghost?”

With his lightened mood, Belle laughed. “Gwenny would certainly get a tickle out of it, her spiritualist interests lately.”

He gave her a squeeze. His hand grazed along the swell of her belly as he took the post along with her book beneath it, setting it all on the coffee table. “We’ll save it for dinner, give them a good story tonight,” he said, sitting back and leaning into her to press a kiss to her neck, just beneath her ear. “Just now I’m feeling exceptionally alive. You?”

Belle slipped her hands over his shoulders, lacing her fingers at the back of his neck. “Oh, livelier and livelier…”

**Author's Note:**

> (Set six to seven years after Belle and Rummond married.)


End file.
